Interactive lesson

Clearing land, step by step

Interactive lesson: hazard check, a plan by sections, choosing a method, brambles, scrub and black locust, stumps and what to do with the brash without fire.

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The whole lesson as text

1. Hazard check first

You don't set foot on suspect ground, and neither does a machine.

Check the history — Before the first cut, read the environmental and mining searches from the purchase, ask the local authority and look at old maps. In the UK, specialist firms produce UXO risk maps; in the US, check the list of Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS).
Ask older neighbours — Ask where the camps, ranges, pits, wells and dumps were, and whether anything was ever found.
Signs on the ground — Old warning signs, fenced-off areas, concrete bases, rusty wire and trenches. Old signs may have fallen down.
Unknown object — Stop, don't touch it and go back the way you came. Mark the spot from a distance and call the police: 999 or 112 in the UK and Ireland, 911 in the US and Canada.

Why: Overgrown land is sometimes left alone for a reason. Old farms and woods hide open wells, mine shafts, buried tanks and dumped chemicals, and former military ranges, airfields and wartime bomb sites can hold unexploded ordnance. If there is any real doubt, stay out, whether with a machine, livestock or a saw.

Never take a find home, throw it on a fire or try to take it apart.
On former military land don't burn vegetation: fire can set off ordnance in the soil and under the scrub.

2. Safety and a plan

Clear section by section: 500 m² fully cleared beats a hectare half done.

Protective gear — Thick leather gloves, a heavy jacket, safety glasses or a visor and high boots against snakes. For a chainsaw, add a helmet, chainsaw trousers and boots.
Walk it with a stick — Old wells, septic tanks and cellars get overgrown and disappear. Cover any hole you find straight away with strong boards and fence it off.
Sections of 200–1,000 m² — Draw a sketch and split the plot into sections. Start with the section nearest the house and water.
What stays — Mark old plums, pears and walnuts, young oaks and hazel for stakes with tape before you cut.

Why: Clearing is heavy work with sharp tools, in dense growth where you can't see well. Clear the first section completely, roots and all, and put it to use at once. Just mow the other sections, or keep them grazed, until their turn comes.

Ticks: light clothing, trousers tucked into socks and a body check every evening.
Don't cut hedges and scrub in the bird nesting season, roughly March to August; in the UK and Ireland hedge cutting is restricted from 1 March to 31 August.